End of Days ends in a surprising fashion…
Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Illustrated by Laurence Campbell
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsThe battle between the BPRD and the Black Flame rages on! As the team in Denver tries to take down the enemy from afar, Liz and Johann are out to end the fight against the Black Flame before he destroys New York City.
Mark: This being the final issue of this arc, I don’t think there’s any point in trying to talk around spoilers. We’re going to dive right into it. Consider this your spoiler warning.
Right, now that that’s out of the way, I think it’s safe to say that this issue did not turn out the way I expected. I mean, for the most part the plot was exactly what I was expecting, but in terms of tone, I had radically different expectations. I was bracing myself for the worst, but the worst didn’t happen. Considering what I was expecting, this issue is downright sunny.
How’d you find it, Brian?
Brian: I had a similar reaction to the issue—at each turn, I thought “OK, here is where tragedy catches up to [insert character here],” but aside from the Black Flame (and Iosif’s facemask thing), everyone more or less is exactly where they need to be, and thriving, at the end of the issue.
Mark: I’m not relieved though. All that tension still remains, so waiting until May for this story to continue is going to be agonizing. Sure, the Black Flame is dead, but that’s actually kind of made things worse. Now there’s no one keeping one of the Ogdru Jahad from changing the Earth into something new.
But let’s go back to the beginning and work our way forward from there. This issue kicked off with Johann having a chat with Redding who was trying to convince Johann to die and merge with the universe. Of all the characters to get a reprieve from death, Johann was the one I least expected. I’d actually got to the point where I was thinking of it as a foregone conclusion.
Brian: See, I wasn’t sure about Johann, because he’s been on an arc from humanity to inhumanity, or maybe put differently, on a path pulling him further away from his mortal existence. And so, the logical place for that journey to end is pretty close to where this issue started: becoming one with the universe. The fact that he didn’t choose that path, and the fact that he came back from that stronger and more focused (not necessarily by his own power, obviously) perhaps meant that he is starting to come back towards the human side of the continuum.
Mark: Even if it means beating the Black Flame into a bloody blue pulp. I guess I think of Johann very much as John Arcudi’s character. I mean, he didn’t create him, but he’s a character Arcudi’s said before is one of his favorites. And I know Mignola said that if there were any characters Arcudi didn’t want someone else to write, he should feel free to take them out in these final arcs. Johann’s one of those characters that I can’t really imagine anyone else but Arcudi writing.
So that Johann survived was a big surprise for me.
Brian: Over the course of the series, the whole idea of winning has changed, and now survival seems to be the goal—I wouldn’t be surprised if Johann dies, but I’d be more surprised if he is satisfied with his survival. He’s been on the verge of disappearance so many times now, it seems like that is just what he is being drawn to, but it keeps being interrupted by stuff that needs to get done.
Moving away from Johann for a second, is there anything that can really take down Liz at this point? Or is she, essentially, a full fledged superhero (forgive the term)?
I honestly don’t know. Since The Reign of the Black Flame she’s certainly become more like a superhero, but I still think there’s further for her to go. So far she’s only really got the destructive side her power, but Vril is life too. I wonder if there’s another way for Liz to use her abilities that she’s unaware of.
Continued belowI found her plotline the most satisfying in this arc, because throughout the run of the series, Liz has been broken again and again. But this time she didn’t break. I mean, she was losing the fight, but that didn’t break her resolve at all. It was satisfying to see her not just physically powerful, but psychologically powerful. Even beaten, her will was unbroken. I like Liz like that. And after years of being beaten and broken, it feels like it was really earned.
Although that line of Latin, “semper victor mortis” (victory over death always) was a little odd. Maybe it’s a reference I’m not getting. It just didn’t strike me as a very Liz thing to say.
Brian: I always felt that Liz was a character that was waiting for her moment—as you said, she’s been beaten down quite a bit over the course of her time in the series and, as one of the first Bureau agents we meet, she’s been around since the beginning. But all of that time—her disappearance, her losses—it always seemed like it was setting her up for greatness. I hope this is just the start of her renaissance.
Mark: Me too. Like I said, she was my favorite part of this arc.
I’m curious how you found the big fight. We already saw Liz and the Black Flame go all out in The Reign of the Black Flame. They couldn’t really get bigger that that, so the major change here is the power balance. For most of the fight, Liz is horribly outmatched.
For a long time now, practically all of B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth, the series has been an arms race. Both sides just keep buffing their stats. But there’s only so far you can take that.
It feels like more and more the series is going to head in this direction. It’s been really cool to have these Vril heavy-hitters like Liz and Johann in battle, and they are always going to be valuable, but I think we’re starting to see more emphasis put on occult experts and specialists like Panya, Professor O’Donnell, Howards, Fenix, and Ashley Strode.
Brian: This battle, more than any since Liz got supercharged, felt more like a team victory than anything else. Like you said, it took both the Vril powerhouses and the occult team back at HQ to bring down the Black Flame, but there was something really satisfying about that. It showed that maybe the war is winnable (or at least survivable) if the various sectors of the Bureau can find ways to combine their might.
I think Panya is the key to that—she’s such a mysterious figure, and one that has held secrets and hasn’t always been exactly forthcoming in the past. If she can really embrace being an active part of this fight, it could be the lynch pin to taking down the ever escalating enemies.
Mark: Panya’s been playing the long game. You’re not up to date with Abe Sapien, are you? It was revealed in December’s issue that she’s been watching over Abe from a distance since before they even met. She originally reached out to Abe in Garden of Souls because she saw that what was coming couldn’t be stopped. Panya’s not trying to change what’s happening as the world ends, she’s trying to prepare Abe for his role in it.
But going back to your first point, that was what was really satisfying about this issue, that this was a team effort. I’ve missed the team. The main characters have been a bit isolated from each other of late, even as they fight side by side. I think this is why I like Iosif so much, because he’s invested in more than his own worries. He’s invested in Johann. He’s clearly good friends with Kate. I like the way he always greets Giarocco by her first name. When characters care about the characters around them, they just seem more interesting to me.
Continued belowWhich is what makes this ending so heartbreakingly sad. Iosif’s been breaking for a long while now, and to see him give in like this… I think he just made the single biggest mistake in the history of the B.P.R.D. series.
Brian: One of the wonderful things about this series is how characters continually surprise you, and are never quite what they seem. Remember the Iosif of Russia? I didn’t trust that guy in the slightest. Now? Hell, I’d let him babysit my daughter!
Actually, scratch that. No, no I wouldn’t.
But seriously, he’s a character that is utterly fascinating, and full of interesting choices. His letting Varvara out of her exile is sure to be a huge deal, but do we actually know it’s going to be a bad thing? Sure, she’s more or less pure evil, but do we know that her interests would more lie with the destruction of the world, versus having a world with which to haunt?
Mark: I don’t think Varvara would destroy the world, but keep in mind she’s the last of Hell’s ruling class. She has the power to command all the legions of Hell (except the army for the end of the world). The Ogdru Hem have made Earth into a kind of hell, whereas I think Varvara will make Earth into the actual Hell. Hell with a capital H. Not just a bad place, but a place for the damned.
The monsters so far kill because they are monsters. I think Varvara will introduce an element of playful sadism on top of that. She’ll make it personal. That and she’ll release everything that’s been held at bay for so long. Things like the vampire army that’s been steadily getting bigger in secret over the last 500 years. I’m betting with Varvara loose, that army is about to wake up.
Like Varvara always said, she likes Earth. But don’t be surprised if she wants to redecorate when she runs the place.
Brian: I think we need to discuss the art a little bit before we wrap up. Laurence Campbell continues to stun with his contributions to this title, time and time again. In this issue, he has to illustrate everything from the ethereal plane to a stark hospital room, and imbues each image with the sort of care and attention to detail that make each scene truly its own, and somehow ties them all together. I think this might be Campbell’s most impressive issue yet.
Mark: Not only does he need to draw all these locations, but he needs to connect them all to each other, even as they span the recesses of a character’s mind. I find that very hard to show in these reviews, because you don’t get all that from a single image. I mean, just look at that sequence following the words heard on the battlefield of Manhattan, into the Black Flame’s head, then Fenix’s dead sister’s head, then to Fenix, then to Panya, and finally the apparition of Shonchin in the B.P.R.D. infirmary… that was really powerful stuff.
I’m very curious to see what he does in the next arc, but we’ll have to wait until May to find out.
Brian: Between now and then, I’ll be dealing with a newborn baby, so I’ll be plenty busy, but the way you talk about this, I just imagine you putting a red “x” on a giant calendar every day from now to May. I can feel the anticipation in your every word.
Mark: I am both impatient for the next issue, and yet dread its coming. To be honest, I’m kind of glad we get a three-issue break with Cameron Stewart’s The Exorcist. I think I’d go prematurely grey worrying about the characters otherwise.
Brian: What do you give this, grade wise?
Mark: I’m going for an 8.5. Seeing Liz victorious and the group working together was very satisfying… and then that ending with Iosif showed how fragile that victory is. I’m a sucker for an ominous cliffhanger, I guess.
Brian: Nailed it—8.5 is perfect.
Final verdict: 8.5.
